This invention relates generally to media systems and, more particularly, to media systems supporting custom video mosaic pages.
Video mosaic pages allow users to access services and video assets from video-rich menu screens in an interactive application, such as an interactive media guidance application. These video-rich menu screens may present a plurality of video assets (e.g., broadcast television channels or on-demand content) each in its own video window, or cell, on a single page.
Video mosaic pages are typically remotely-generated at a distribution facility or central facility. At the distribution facility or central facility, the video assets in the mosaic page are composited into a single video feed before being transmitted to the user equipment device. The multi-video feed may be transmitted as a composite stream (e.g., MPEG-2 stream) to a number of user equipment devices. For example, the composite stream may be transmitted to user equipment devices over a digital television channel. After the stream is received by the user equipment devices, a local video mosaic client may overlay graphics, icons, and text onto the display to create custom video mosaic pages. For example, one implementation of a video mosaic system for providing video mosaic pages called “Video-Rich Navigation” (VRN) is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/395,380, filed Mar. 30, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Although video mosaic pages provide a more user-friendly way to present video assets to viewers, the pages may be limited in several respects. For example, because video mosaic pages are typically remotely-generated, there is very little flexibility for users to personalize the look and feel of the page. The remotely-generated nature of these pages also prevents dynamic page creation and customization, for example, at the viewer's user equipment.
In addition, typical video mosaic pages are limited in the type of content that is available for display in the pages. Because the pages are typically remotely-generated, local content, such as content stored on a digital video recorder (DVR), gaming device, or other suitable local storage device, are generally not available for use in video mosaic pages.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide systems and methods for dynamic video mosaic page creation and display. The video mosaic pages may combine local content with broadcast, multicast, switched digital video, and on-demand assets in a single interactive display. It would also be desirable to provide video mosaic pages capable of being automatically customized based on user behavior and user preferences.